Script design in the media: Radio talk norms behind a professional voice

The study of style within the variationist tradition in sociolinguistics has received little attention in general terms. Some of the main introductory textbooks dealing with this discipline hardly mention style as a variable, and, when they do, they usually understand style as a reflection of the speaker’s attention to his/her own speech. Contrary to this tradition, two main approaches have been proposed. First, in the Audience Design model [Bell, A., 1984. Language style as audience design. Language in Society 13, 145–204] stylistic variation is seen as the result of an adaptation to the features of a present or absent audience. Second, in the so-called Speaker Design model, stylistic variation is seen as a process of identity building. In our study, we analyse the speech of a radio presenter in a local station in Murcia and compare it to the audience’s linguistic behaviour as shown in the phone calls received during the programme. We also analyse the data obtained in an interview with the radio presenter. Our results, which show a radical divergence between the presenter’s speech and that of his audience, are contrasted with both Audience Design and Speaker Design theoretical tenets, using the explicit knowledge of the presenter’s attitudes and opinions to contrast theory and fact. We conclude that neither model offers a completely satisfactory explanation of the patterns found. Finally, we reflect on the need to consider not only performance, but also the script (in the form of a professional voice used following a particular linguistic policy based on sociolinguistic norms and attitudes to language) that condition the individual linguistic behaviour, thus suggesting the need to consider community-specific factors in the explanation of stylistic variation.